Category: The Conversation – UK

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Rachel Woods, Associate Professor, University of Nottingham; University of Lincoln

The trillions of microbes living in the human gut are increasingly recognised as important partners in human health. Scientists have linked the gut microbiome to several aspects of health, from metabolism and immunity to mental health.

A recent study suggests that these microbes may also influence an important aspect of fitness – muscle strength.

Muscle strength is a crucial feature of health for many reasons. It supports our joints and keeps our bones healthy, boosts athletic performance and even plays a role in metabolic health.

Muscle strength also helps us maintain independence later in life. As muscles gradually weaken as we get older, everyday tasks become harder and the risk of falls increases. Understanding what influences muscle strength is therefore an important part of healthy ageing research.

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Read more:
Muscle is important for good health – here’s how to maintain it after middle age

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A recent study explored whether specific gut bacteria might be linked to muscle strength. Researchers analysed the gut microbiomes of two groups of adults: 90 young adults aged 18 to 25 and 33 older adults aged 65 to 75.

Participants provided stool samples so researchers could identify the microbes living in their gut. The researchers used DNA sequencing to read genetic material from the microbes in each sample. By comparing these sequences with large reference databases, they could determine which bacterial species were present and how abundant they were.

Participants also completed several tests designed to measure muscle strength, including a handgrip test. This involves squeezing a handheld device as hard as possible. Grip strength is widely used in health research because it provides a snapshot of overall muscle strength. Lower grip strength has also been linked to a higher risk of premature death.

When the researchers compared participants’ muscle strength with the microbes in their gut, one species stood out. Higher levels of a bacterium called Roseburia inulinivorans were linked to stronger performance across muscle strength measures.

Finding a link like this is interesting, but it does not necessarily mean the microbe is responsible. Many things can be associated without one directly causing the other. Ice-cream sales and shark attacks both increase during summer, for example – but eating ice cream does not cause shark attacks.

So to investigate whether the bacterium might actually influence muscle strength, the researchers carried out additional experiments in mice. After reducing the animals’ existing gut microbes, they introduced Roseburia inulinivorans into the mice’s digestive systems.

Mice that received the bacterium developed noticeably stronger grip strength in their arms than those that did not. Their muscle fibres also became larger and shifted toward a type of fibre associated with more powerful movements (called type II muscle fibres).

Further analysis suggested Roseburia inulinivorans may influence how muscles use energy. In mice given R inulinivorans, several energy‑related pathways inside muscle cells became more active. At the same time, levels of certain amino acids (molecules used by all living things to make proteins) decreased in the gut and bloodstream.

The human data revealed another interesting pattern. Older adults in the study tended to have lower levels of Roseburia inulinivorans in their gut microbiome than the younger participants. This fits with the broader pattern of declining muscle strength that commonly occurs with age.

In humans, it’s still unclear whether gut bacteria influence muscle strength or whether stronger, more active people simply have different microbes in their gut. But the mouse experiments hint that this microbe can directly enhance muscle strength, so larger human studies will be needed to work out the direction of the relationship.

Muscle microbes

One possibility raised by this research is the future use of probiotics. These products contain live microbes intended to benefit health. If further studies confirm that Roseburia inulinivorans supports muscle strength in humans, it could be developed into a probiotic designed to help maintain muscle function as people age.

However, supplements are not the only way to encourage beneficial microbes in the gut. Diet plays a major role in shaping the microbiome.

Prebiotic fibres, which serve as food for gut bacteria, can also support their growth. This is because feeding these microbes allows them to become more established and active in the gut.

The name inulinivorans provides a clue about this bacterium’s preferred food source. It refers to inulin, a type of dietary fibre found naturally in foods such as onions, garlic, leeks, asparagus and chicory root. These fibres are known to support the growth of other beneficial gut bacteria, including members of the Roseburia group.

High‑fibre diets have long been associated with a range of health benefits. A large amount of research has linked higher fibre intake with lower risks of heart disease, type 2 diabetes and some cancers. These effects are probably driven by the complex activity of many different microbes rather than a single species. So at the moment, supplementation of any one individual bacterium is not a replacement for a diet high in fibre.

The study does have some limitations to note, however. The human groups were relatively small, and the experiments demonstrating cause and effect were conducted in mice rather than people. The older adults included in the study were also all male. Even so, the findings add to growing evidence that the gut microbiome may influence far more aspects of health than previously thought.

For now, the advice for supporting both muscle strength and a healthy microbiome remains reassuringly familiar: regular strength‑building exercise and a diet rich in fibre.

Rachel Woods does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Could a gut microbe influence muscle strength? – https://theconversation.com/could-a-gut-microbe-influence-muscle-strength-278346

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Lucy Stone, Assistant Professor of Children’s Literature, Dublin City University

When Winnie-the-Pooh gets stuck in Rabbit’s doorway after eating too much for elevenses, he is anxious and gloomy at the thought of having to forgo food for a whole week to get out. He asks Christopher Robin to read him “a Sustaining Book, such as would help and comfort a Wedged Bear in Great Tightness”.

A.A. Milne’s first children’s novel, Winnie-the-Pooh, does not exactly explain what a “Sustaining Book” is. But E.H. Shepard’s illustration provides some clue. Christopher Robin is shown reading an alphabet book with the word JAM for J visible on the page.

Jam is not Pooh’s favourite food, of course, but the word is more than apt. Pooh is in a jam, but being read to sustains him in his difficult situation by bringing him comfort. The book acts as “an aid in the crisis”, as former teacher Ethel Newell noted in a study of bibliotherapy for children in 1957.

Dating back to the early 19th century, bibliotherapy is a therapeutic approach that fosters reading books and other forms of literature to support mental wellbeing and healing.

This year marks the centenary of the first Winnie-the-Pooh book. Milne based the timeless tales on the nursery toys and games of his son, Christopher Robin – the boy who lives in the fictional world of the Hundred Acre Wood. His adventures with his bear, Winnie-the-Pooh, and friends (Piglet, Eeyore, Kanga and Roo, Rabbit and Owl), are equally gentle, clever and funny – and above all, comforting.

The book was an overnight success when it was first published (as was its sequel, The House at Pooh Corner, in 1928), and continues to cheer readers world over.

Literary caregiving

When Winnie-the-Pooh was published, books had been used in hospital libraries to alleviate the suffering of ill and wounded soldiers from the first world war. This idea of books as a source of comfort was not new, but there had been an increasing need in this period for what authors Sara Halsam and Edmund G.C. King term “literary caregiving”.

It was at this time that American journalist Samuel McChord Crothers coined the term bibliotherapy, and reading for wellbeing began to be recognised in the medical sphere.

Milne had himself fought in the war and experienced the suffering and trauma firsthand. Winnie-the-Pooh has long been considered a response to war, particularly in terms of the book’s nostalgia and depiction of psychological damage. But as an example of bibliotherapy – and how this too is tied to the war – Winnie-the-Pooh has received scant critical attention.

It is, of course, not just soldiers – nor bears in rabbit burrows – who need good books. Children stuck in hospital need them too. Undergoing medical treatment, especially for serious illness, can be one of the greatest challenges a child can face, as highlighted by the Read for Good initiative.

This hospital reading programme has run in 31 hospitals across the UK over the past 15 years, and has found that books and storytelling can “have a significant impact on children’s health, wellbeing and education” – at a time when children are facing illness or injury, missing out on schooling, and feeling isolated.

While Winnie-the-Pooh is not currently among the books in the Read for Good hospitals programme in the UK, the benefits of this children’s novel in hospitals have long been evident in initiatives in the US.

In 1999, the University of Florida launched a reading programme for the waiting room at the University’s Pediatric Continuity Care Clinic. One report describes a four-year-old girl who, nervously awaiting treatment, was calmed when Winnie-the-Pooh was read to her. And, just like Pooh being taught his ABCs, the child also learned new vocabulary from the story.

This programme is part of the Reach Out and Read campaign, endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics, which serves 4.8 million children across the US each year. Continued research efforts evaluate and maximise the impact of this initiative, and have found that there are positive results for children, families and clinicians.

More recently, in 2024 there was study of the parent-led Little Bookworms bedside reading programme in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) in Nashville.

Winnie-the-Pooh was selected as a book from childhood recommended by study participants to read with their infants, to “reduce anxiety and improve attachment for parents and caregivers who have infants in the NICU”. Supporting the wellbeing and engagement of carers in this way can help reduce some of the risks NICU infants face, including interruptions to language development which can affect subsequent literacy development.

Books to grow up with

More broadly, the potential of rereading a childhood book cannot be underestimated. Books read in childhood do not disappear, but “continue to unfold and inform the way in which we interpret the world” in our minds, as children’s literature expert Kimberley Reynolds of Newcastle University has established.

Paula Byrne, founder of the ReLit Foundation – which promotes reading as a way to combat stress and anxiety through “the slow reading of great literature” – has described the rereading of Winnie-the-Pooh in adulthood as therapeutic. Byrne believes the book has the capacity to grow with the reader from childhood to adulthood, offering new insights that can be appreciated in later life.

It is this ability of a book to grow with the reader that is of most help to children in distress, Newell suggested, providing “real armour” to children over a sustained period, and not just “a shot of penicillin for a particular infection”.

Over the past 100 years, Winnie-the-Pooh has grown from a book containing an example of bibliotherapy to a book for bibliotherapy in hospitals. As we celebrate the centenary of its publication, these ties to books as therapy for children and adults are well worth remembering.

Lucy Stone does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Winnie-the-Pooh at 100: this much-loved classic illustrates how books can boost our wellbeing – https://theconversation.com/winnie-the-pooh-at-100-this-much-loved-classic-illustrates-how-books-can-boost-our-wellbeing-277528

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Matthew Powell, Teaching Fellow in Strategic and Air Power Studies, University of Portsmouth

Iran targeted energy facilities across the Middle East on March 18, including the world’s largest liquefied natural gas hub in Qatar, in retaliation for Israeli strikes on an Iranian gas field hours earlier.

Iran has gone on to attack other energy facilities across the Gulf. This has included hitting a Saudi refinery on the Red Sea and setting two Kuwaiti oil refineries ablaze in an intensification of its campaign against energy infrastructure in the region.

As an expert on military strategy, I see the Iranian attacks on Gulf energy facilities as part of a broader strategic agenda the regime in Tehran has employed to try and ensure its survival.

Iran’s attacks on energy infrastructure since the start of the conflict have been accompanied with wider missile and drone strikes against US military bases and infrastructure in the region. Through these attacks, which have killed seven American service personnel so far, the regime has looked to demonstrate its capacity and capability not only to international audiences but also the Iranian population.

This includes, perhaps most importantly, those responsible for maintaining Iran’s internal security. If those tasked with this responsibility began to doubt the regime’s capacity to respond to attack, they might become less inclined to suppress rebellions and uprisings.

The ability to exercise force has long been central to maintaining the regime’s domestic political position in Iran. This has been demonstrated by the brutal repression of various protest movements over the past decade or so.

In its attacks on Gulf energy infrastructure, Iran has two main goals. The first is to hit the Gulf states economically in the hope that this will reduce their willingness to provide support to the US.

Gulf countries are heavily reliant on the export of energy for revenue. In Qatar, for example, earnings from the hydrocarbon sector accounted for 83% of total government revenues in 2023. These revenues help Gulf states maintain the low tax regime that is enjoyed by their populations.

If these revenues reduce substantially because energy cannot be processed, some of these nations may begin to question their alliances with the US. Such a scenario would reduce the ability of the US to conduct military operations in the Middle East and project its power and influence on the region.

The war is already having a significant impact on these countries. Goldman Sachs has estimated that Qatar and Kuwait could see their GDP drop by 14% if the war lasts until the end of April. Likewise, Capital Economics has suggested that GDP in the region could fall by between 10% to 15% if the conflict causes lasting damage to energy infrastructure.

Rifts do not yet appear to be emerging between the US and its Middle Eastern allies. But Tehran will be calculating that prolonged attacks – alongside continued disruption to the vital strait of Hormuz shipping lane – will add strain to relations.

Raising energy prices

Iran’s second, and wider, goal is to raise global energy prices. The Middle East is a key energy supplier globally, so disruption to supplies in this region can have an almost immediate impact on prices.

The price of a barrel of Brent crude, the global benchmark for oil pricing, has increased from around US$68 (£51) on February 27 to nearly US$100. This has so far largely been the result of disruption to the strait of Hormuz, which has prevented the Gulf states from supplying their energy to global markets.

But Tehran’s calculation appears to be that further efforts to reduce Gulf energy supplies will force nations worldwide, who are having to implement costly policies to reduce the impact of increased energy prices on their populations, to question the actions of the US in Iran.

In the Philippines, which is highly dependent on the Gulf oil, the government has told its agencies to cut electricity and fuel use by between 10% and 20%. Vietnam has introduced work-from-home policies for many public sector workers. And the UK government has announced a £53 million support package for people who rely on oil for central heating.

Iran’s final strategic consideration is that attacking energy facilities may help erode domestic support for Trump in the US. This could force a change in political direction. The price of petrol has already increased to an average of US$3.60 per gallon in the US – a level not seen since the opening days of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

This price increase will be passed on to consumers, creating a headache for Trump ahead of midterm elections in November. Trump’s platform of reducing the inflation seen under the Biden administration was a key part of the election campaign that successfully returned him to the White House.

Iran’s attacks on energy infrastructure are likely to continue. This is because they enable the regime in Tehran to increase the costs of the war even to those who are not directly involved, ramping up global pressure on the US to draw the conflict to a close.

Matthew Powell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Why Iran is attacking Gulf energy infrastructure – https://theconversation.com/why-iran-is-attacking-gulf-energy-infrastructure-278815

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Gemma Ware, Host, The Conversation Weekly Podcast, The Conversation

As Pete Hegseth, the Fox News host turned Donald Trump’s defense secretary, stood on the front lawn of the Pentagon to record a promotional video in July 2025, a drone hovered above him.

Hegseth said that America’s adversaries had “produced millions of cheap drones” and it was time for the US to catch up. The Trump administration, he added, would arm combat units with “a variety of low-cost American-crafted drones” as part of a plan to secure US “drone dominance”.

A few days later, Hegseth toured a display of 18 American-made protype drones. One of those on display was a Low-Cost Uncrewed Combat Attack System (Lucas) drone. By December, a squadron of these kamikaze drones was already in the Middle East.

These Lucas drones may have been made in America, but they are a reverse-engineered copy of the kamikaze Iranian drone called a Shahed. Now, the US military has deployed them to attack Iran.

In this episode of The Conversation Weekly podcast,  we speak to Arun Dawson, a PhD researcher at King’s College London, about how the Iranians developed the Shahed drones, why the US decided to copy them, and what role these low-cost drones might play in the future of warfare.

“Each of these drones costs US$35,000 (£26,000),” says Dawson, compared with US$3.6 million for each Tomahawk cruise missile. “With an American style defence budget, you can buy enough of them that you completely saturate the capabilities of an adversary to respond.

“Once you’ve achieved that,” he explains, “you can then send in your high-expense equipment to do the dirty job of delivering pretty large, decisive payloads on particular targets. That’s what the American military is beginning to explore and pivot towards.”

Listen to the interview with Arun Dawson on The Conversation Weekly podcast and read an article he wrote for The Conversation. This episode was written and produced by Mend Mariwany and Gemma Ware. Mixing by Eleanor Brezzi and theme music by Neeta Sarl.

Newsclips in this episode from The WallStreet Journal, New York Post, 10 News and CBS News.

Listen to The Conversation Weekly via any of the apps listed above, download it directly via our RSS feed or find out how else to listen here. A transcript of this episode is available via the Apple Podcasts or Spotify apps.

Arun Dawson is affiliated with the Royal United Services Institute.

– ref. How the US copied a cheap Iranian kamikaze drone and used it to bomb Iran – https://theconversation.com/how-the-us-copied-a-cheap-iranian-kamikaze-drone-and-used-it-to-bomb-iran-278695

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Stephen Lezak, Programme Manager at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, University of Oxford

The Trump administration pulled the rug out from underneath US federal climate policy in February, when the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) overturned the landmark 2009 “endangerment finding”. Now, the official policy of the US government holds that greenhouse gases do not pose a risk to human health.

The move has opened a new frontier for Donald Trump to govern without being constrained by evidence or in a manner that represents the majority of Americans, who support pro-climate policies. It also follows a year in which the US president and his allies have hollowed out American climate leadership.

Since taking office, Trump and his allies have rolled back clean air standards for almost anything with a tailpipe or smokestack. In January 2026, they even instructed the EPA to stop estimating the value of lives saved in the agency’s cost-benefit analyses for new pollution rules. This could lead to looser controls on pollutants from industrial sites across the country.

As US climate leadership recedes into the rearview mirror, one question remains: will any nation – and China in particular – rush in to fill the gap? I wish there were a simple answer. But enthusiasm for climate leadership is backsliding, and not just from the US government.

Even as renewable energy installation continues worldwide, there are some signs of retreat. Across the world, companies are quietly shedding their net-zero targets. US car manufacturers Ford and General Motors also recently wrote off more than US$25 billion (£18.5 billion) of investment in electric vehicles because consumer demand has failed to match their forecasts.

It is no coincidence that this breakdown in the global climate consensus comes at a time when tensions are rising worldwide. The global order is reeling over Trump’s war in Iran and sabre-rattling over Greenland. Meanwhile, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has dragged into its fifth year without any clear prospect of peace.

Climate collaboration requires a belief that everyone is pitching in. When global institutions and norms look weak, national leaders worry about being the last honest participant in a deal that everyone else has abandoned. This is as true for countries as for human beings: nobody wants to feel like they’ve been duped.

However, there are some signs of hope. Demand for clean energy isn’t going away overnight. Renewable energy is often cheaper than fossil power, even without subsidies. A July 2025 report by the International Renewable Energy Agency found that nine in ten new renewable projects are on track to generate cheaper power than fossil fuel alternatives.

Just as important is the fact that citizens around the world continue to suffer from the effects of breathing polluted air, which the World Health Organization estimates causes 7 million deaths worldwide each year.

Even as climate concern falters, some of the world’s most populous cities, such as New Delhi in India, are under growing pressure to protect their residents’ health. They are likely to continue reducing their use of fossil fuels to heat homes, generate electricity and move people around.

Meanwhile, China is on a glide path to fill part of the void opened by America’s climate retreat. It already dominates certain clean energy technologies, holding a near-monopoly on battery, solar panel and fuel cell production. Chinese companies now manufacture more electric vehicles than every other nation combined.

Cementing its position as the new global climate leader would also earn China diplomatic “soft power,” especially among developing nations where Beijing can offer clean energy infrastructure plus the loans to finance it.

But, at the same time, China has shown a steady unwillingness to back strong political leadership on climate action. China’s leaders are bullish on renewable energy when it serves their economic interests. However, they are broadly resistant to the sort of strong international pressures that could stabilise global temperature rise.

It wasn’t until 2025 that China promised to actually reduce its emissions. And its recent commitments, which include a pledge to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 10% below peak levels by 2035, fall well short of what analysts say will be necessary to keep global warming below 1.5°C.

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Read more:
When China makes a climate pledge, the world should listen

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With US credibility rapidly eroding, the 21st century seems poised to slide deeper into a style of governance that is characterised less by rigorous analysis than by the whims of its leaders.

The silver lining is that demagoguery has a shelf life. Trump’s approval rating has fallen to second-term lows, with polls showing him at -17 points. The demand for clean air, cheap energy and competent governance doesn’t go away because one administration decides to ignore it.

One day Trump will eventually fade from the political landscape. Climate change will not.

Stephen Lezak does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Will the world fill the climate leadership void left by the US? – https://theconversation.com/will-the-world-fill-the-climate-leadership-void-left-by-the-us-276200

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Stephen Marsh, Reader in Politics, Cardiff University

Operation Epic Fury unleashed overwhelming firepower on Iran and a Trump broadside against Britain’s prime minister. The president belittled Keir Starmer as being no comparison to Winston Churchill, raged against caveated British support and placed Britain’s standing as America’s “greatest ally” firmly in the past tense.

Starmer refused the bait. His government is privately contemptuous of the Trump administration. But he still needs to deal with the US president and how he should do that following the recent vitriol is a very live question.

Winston Churchill appropriated the term special relationship after the second world war to refer to the myriad Anglo-American connections. Some were government-to-government, spanning privileged diplomatic, economic, military, nuclear and intelligence cooperation. Others were historical and cultural, from which evolved a sentimental myth of special relations based on uniquely entwined histories, a common language, similar values and so forth.

For 80 years, Britain and the US stood shoulder-to-shoulder in defence of a liberal international order they fashioned from the ruins of war. The US became a hyperpower. Post-imperial Britain settled as a leading medium-sized power. But the song remained the same – at least until the Trump administration’s discordant note.

Brexit made Britain even more dependent on US power. Starmer, therefore, followed almost every prime minister since the second world war in seeking close personal relations with US presidents and the preservation of Britain’s standing as America’s foremost ally.

In fairness, of all the national leaders aspiring to be a “Trump whisperer”, Starmer has been one of the more successful. Routine extensive government-to-government dialogue has been combined with carefully choreographed leveraging of cultural connections to massage the president’s ego. Particularly noteworthy has been recruitment of British royalty to the cause, including the president’s historic second state visit in September 2025.

Still, Trump’s personality and his administration’s policies remain challenging. Starmer risks association with Trump’s political toxicity if he gets too close and will be questioned about whether any rewards from such courtship outweigh the costs.

Fidelity above all else

The Trump administration is anomalous. Unlike previous administrations, it does not consistently work with the British government to put a positive face on Anglo-American relations. The feel-good sentiment generated by the second state visit, for example, dissipated rapidly once Trump carelessly attacked British policies shortly afterwards in the United Nations.

Meanwhile, Trump’s prioritises fidelity above competence and centralises power in his White House. These tendencies, and his suspicion of expertise within the “deep state” weaken Britain’s ability to feed into the American foreign policymaking process.

Trump’s inconsistency, preference for diplomacy by social media, and frequently provocative and erroneous statements often trap Starmer between trying to smooth consequent tensions (in which case he appears as a Trump apologist) or rebutting the president. This was clear when Trump threatened Canadian sovereignty, when he repeatedly implied he would invade Greenland and when he attacked the commitment of British troops in Afghanistan.

Finally, and most importantly, the Trump administration is undermining the liberal international order, casting its anti-liberal, anti-modernist and anti-globalist tendencies against Britain’s preferences for international law, multilateral institutions, collective security and international free trade.

What should Starmer do now?

On balance, Starmer’s best option for now is to hope, hedge and wait. In the short term, Downing Street will hope that US mid-terms return a Congress less pliant to Trump’s ambitions and that legal actions through American courts continue their disruption.

In the longer term, the next three years will constitute a damage-limitation exercise while the world waits for Trump’s successor to arrive. The hope will be that whoever the next president is, Anglo-American relations will improve simply from being liberated from the personal and organisational chaos wrought by Trump.

During this interim, Starmer will routinely align Britain with the US provided doing so neither overly compromises British interests nor further weakens the liberal international order. He will also probably swallow bile and continue to woo Trump. That will potentially include leveraging the 250th anniversary celebrations of American independence. Even this, however, will need balancing against the risk of inferred endorsement of Trump ahead of the midterms.

Meanwhile, the British government will de-emphasise the significance of personalities to the robustness of Anglo-American relations and hedge against over-reliance on the US. This means building ever closer relations with Europe, continuing cautious engagement with China and outreach to other centres of economic power.

Starmer should also seek stronger relations with Canada’s Mark Carney, who has emerged as the most capable leader of the world’s medium-ranking powers and who most shares Britain’s conundrum of needing close but not over-dependent relations with Washington.

One final cautionary note. Trump dominates headlines, but he is merely an awkward symptom of the biggest challenge to the special relationship since its inception. The international order is in flux. How it is reshaped will determine whether Britain and the US remain shoulder to shoulder or return to being the distant cousins of the interwar period.

The latter is a scenario that ought to cause British officials sleeplessness. A US retreat to a neo-isolationism that broadly embraces the Maga logic would pass the mantle of principal guardianship of the liberal international order to the European Union. Britannia would then face a not-so-splendid isolation, self-exiled from the union and powerless to prevent retreat of the Atlantic shoreland.

Stephen Marsh does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. What to expect next from the ‘special relationship’ as Trump again lashes out at Keir Starmer – https://theconversation.com/what-to-expect-next-from-the-special-relationship-as-trump-again-lashes-out-at-keir-starmer-278236

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Alex Lo, Professor, Climate | Policy | Sustainability, York St John University

Donald Trump has made it clear he has no intention of playing a global leadership role in green energy or a move towards net zero.

While the US president is stepping back and Washington is deregulating its fossil fuel industry, Beijing is stepping up.

China sees an opportunity to write a green rulebook for the global low-carbon economy. And who makes the rules tends to wield a fair amount of power.

Already China dominates global green energy supply chains, from solar panels, wind turbines, grid equipment and storage systems to electric vehicles.

The US’s recent rollback puts China in a strong position to drive a further shift in where the world looks for green products that meet global standards, and what those global standards are.

China’s most likely move is to scale up a credible monitoring, reporting and verification system across heavy industry, so carbon emissions can be priced, compared and audited.

The EU has just introduced new rules to address “carbon leakage” where companies move production and pollution out of the region. This means that companies will have to purchase certificates showing how much carbon has been produced when importing goods. The UK has plans to follow suit.

Market access is being rewritten around documentation. Exporters that can document carbon content gain an edge over those that cannot. Under other EU rules, a digital “battery passport” becomes mandatory from February 2027 for EV batteries and industrial batteries above 2kWh.

While China does not control access to the European market, it can make it easier for the rest of the world to comply with EU-style requirements. It can do so by standardising the infrastructure and tools that firms need to prove they meet in order to keep selling into Europe. Once a factory is plugged into a particular compliance system, switching is costly.

China can also leverage its supply chain dominance and digital infrastructure to sell traceability tools (which track which materials were used in a product), reporting templates, verification services and management platforms.

Another factor is that in the next few years firms will be expected to publish more consistent, investor-oriented sustainability and climate information, so that investors can compare climate exposure and performance across companies and countries.

From building factories to building rules

China has been strategically transforming into a clean energy superpower since the Paris agreement, where 195 countries agreed to tackle climate change. This part of China’s economy was worth US$ 2.1 trillion (£1.5 trillion), or 11.4% of GDP, in 2025.

China’s investment in renewable energy has increased from US$117 billion in 2015 to US$290 billion in 2024, which is three times that of the US.

However, these numbers do not show a simple divide between the US and China. Some US states are taking action, regardless of the Trump government’s position. US investment in renewable energy increased by 2.6 times from 2015 to 2024, slightly higher than China’s growth rate.

But the US-China divergence is most visible in each nation’s appetite for multilateral engagement. At the UN’s climate summit, COP30, in 2025, China presented itself as a global leader in renewable energy production. It does not treat renewables as just another sector, but as a core pillar of its strategy for economic growth and security. Renewables have been central to China’s economic transformation since the 2010s.

However, China has troubles of its own, so it will also be looking for new ways to boost its own weak economy. It is currently falling short its own emission reduction targets. Its solar panel industry is grappling with over-capacity and a price collapse, and regional competition with India is intensifying.

But as the US pulls back from the green economy, China can position itself as a broker of compatible green finance rules, especially for emerging markets that want capital without being trapped between competing standards, and hope that pays off.

Green rules are increasingly embedded in the global economy. Businesses and investors hate uncertainty, so any move by China to position itself as the international rule-maker for green products and green energy would position it well for the future.

Alex Lo does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. China is ready to drive leadership of a low-carbon world – by making the international rules – https://theconversation.com/china-is-ready-to-drive-leadership-of-a-low-carbon-world-by-making-the-international-rules-276564

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Erhan Kilincarslan, Reader in Accounting and Finance, University of Huddersfield

The way we watch TV, listen to music, order groceries and take photos has changed in the past decade or so. For many of us, all of these activities involve a monthly payment.

Subscriptions have quietly become a major part of household spending across the world. But many people underestimate how much they actually pay. And there is evidence which suggests that the design of subscription services – combined with common human traits – can make these payments easy to overlook.

In the UK, consumers spend around £26 billion a year subscribing to everything from digital media to cosmetics and coffee. (Around 69% of UK households subscribe to at least one video streaming service such as Netflix or Amazon Prime Video.)

And a few small monthly payments can quickly add up. Data from Barclays bank suggests that individual consumers spend £50.60 on – so more than £600 a year. It also shows that spending on digital content and subscription services has increased by nearly 50% since 2020. In households where several people hold subscriptions, the combined spending can be considerably higher.

The result is a subscription economy that is growing faster than many consumers realise. And one reason households underestimate their spending is that some subscriptions continue running even when people no longer use them.

The UK government estimates that of the 155 million subscriptions currently active in the UK, nearly 10 million are unwanted – at a cost to consumers of £1.6 billion each year.

The charity Citizens Advice has calculated that over £300 million a year is spent on subscriptions that people are not actually using, often because they automatically renewed after a free trial.

In many cases the individual payments are small, which makes them easy to miss in a bank statement.

Behavioural economics offers one explanation. Research shows that people tend to evaluate spending using what’s known as “mental accounting” – the tendency to treat small payments separately instead of thinking about how they add up overall. As a result, people group purchases into categories rather than looking at the total amount leaving their bank account.

A £9.99 streaming subscription or a £4.99 app service may not feel significant on its own. But when several subscriptions accumulate, the combined cost can become substantial.

Another factor is automatic renewal. Many services continue charging unless customers actively cancel. This interacts with what behavioural scientists call “status quo bias”, the tendency to stick with the default option.

When cancelling requires effort or attention, people often postpone the decision and continue paying.

Consumer groups have also raised concerns about so called subscription traps. These occur when people are unintentionally signed up to recurring payments or find it difficult to cancel them.

It has been claimed that more than 20 million adults in the UK have signed up to a subscription without realising it and about 4.7 million people are still paying for one they did not knowingly sign up to.

These cases often involve free trials that automatically convert into paid subscriptions or online sign up processes where the recurring payment is not clearly explained.

Researchers studying digital interfaces have also identified design practices that make subscriptions easier to start than to cancel, sometimes described as “dark patterns” in online design.

New rules

The growing scale of the problem has attracted regulatory attention. The UK government has introduced measures aimed at tackling subscription traps, including clearer information about recurring payments and easier cancellation processes. A consultation is now taking place on how these rules will be implemented before they come fully into force.

The goal is to ensure that consumers understand the financial commitment they are entering when signing up to a subscription service.

The new measures will probably help reduce some accidental subscriptions, particularly those created through unclear sign-up processes or free trials that automatically convert into paid plans. And it seems sensible to make sure that subscription contracts contain clearer information and easier cancellation rights to help consumers avoid unwanted recurring payments.

But behavioural factors such as inertia and automatic renewal mean the problem may not disappear entirely. Even when cancellation is straightforward, consumers often delay reviewing small recurring payments, allowing subscriptions to continue.

For households, digital spending often feels invisible. Subscriptions are typically spread across multiple platforms and paid automatically through bank cards or direct debits. Without a deliberate review of monthly statements, it can be difficult to see how much these payments add up to.

Subscriptions can offer convenience and flexibility. But as the subscription economy continues to grow, it can also quietly increase household spending in ways that many consumers barely notice.

Erhan Kilincarslan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Why you may be paying more than you need to for digital subscriptions – https://theconversation.com/why-you-may-be-paying-more-than-you-need-to-for-digital-subscriptions-278057

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Andy J. Green, Professor of Freshwater Ecology, Estación Biológica de Doñana (EBD-CSIC); Manchester Metropolitan University

Hungry gulls do not only steal our chips and sandwiches. They learn our habits, and look for reliable sources of food. That includes waste treatment centres, landfill or anywhere food waste is concentrated. Many gull populations have moved inland from the coast to exploit these sources of food.

Wherever our waste is processed, gulls and other birds can forage. At landfills, gulls feed on waste before it is covered up. If there are plastic or glass pieces covered in food that are small enough, gulls will swallow them whole. Only the food itself gets digested, and when the gull flies back to its roost site, the waste gets regurgitated, polluting that site. This movement of pollutants is known as “biovectoring”.

For the first time, scientists like me are now quantifying just how much plastic and other waste is being leaked into important nature areas through the daily movements of birds.

Many lesser black-backed gulls breeding in the UK and other parts of northern Europe migrate to Andalusia in southern Spain, where they form a wintering population of over 100,000 feeding mainly in rice fields and landfills. Fortunately, many of these birds are fitted with GPS tags while breeding. This enables detailed tracking of their movements.

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Fuente de Piedra lake in Málaga is a hotspot for migrating lesser black-backed gulls. This wetland has such special natural significance, it’s designated as an internationally important site under a global convention known as Ramsar. It’s most famous for the largest breeding colony of flamingos in Spain. Gulls fly up to 50 miles to landfills to feed, then fly back to roost.

By combining GPS data with waterbird counts, and analyses of regurgitated pellets, scientists have estimated that an average of 400kg of plastics, plus more than two tonnes of other debris such as glass, textiles or ceramics, are deposited by this gull species into the lake each year. This lake has no outflow, making it salty and hence flamingo friendly. Those imported plastics remain in the lake, breaking down into microplastics. They can be ingested by flamingo chicks, aquatic insects and other animals.

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In coastal Andalusia, these gulls join the resident yellow-legged gulls (equivalent to our herring gulls) and a mixture of migratory and resident white storks as the three major waterbird visitors to landfills.

In the Cádiz Bay wetlands (another Ramsar site), surrounding the historical city that is now a favourite stop for cruise ships, the three species combine to spread different types and sizes of plastics into different microhabitats. Annually, 530kg of plastics are deposited into wetlands via regurgitated pellets. Although a stork is bigger, so transports more waste per bird, most of the plastic is again moved by the lesser black-backed gulls that winter there in larger numbers.

This waste ingestion has strong effects on the birds themselves, through direct mortality from diseases, choking or becoming entangled with plastics, and toxic effects of the additives within them. Then after regurgitation in pellets, those plastics are a threat to all fauna and readily enter our food supply through aquaculture and table salt production, both important in Cádiz Bay.

These studies in Spain address a problem that is ongoing all over Europe. There are no comparable quantitative studies yet in the UK, but similar problems occur wherever gulls concentrate to feed on our waste. If white storks become abundant in the UK future, they will probably visit our landfills, together with gulls and perhaps cattle egrets.

The sealing of many landfills, and improvements in waste management may have contributed to recent declines in many gull populations in the UK and elsewhere. But these problems of plastic leakage will continue so long as our consumer society generates so much waste. Reducing waste, and reusing things is better than recycling, partly because food containers may get eaten by birds before they can be recycled. Cleaning our food containers before we bin them, and composting our own food waste, can also help to reduce this phenomenon.

Andy J. Green receives competitive research funding from the Andalusian and Spanish governments to study interactions between birds and plastics.

– ref. How birds are spreading plastic pollution – https://theconversation.com/how-birds-are-spreading-plastic-pollution-276988

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Kingsley Omeihe, Senior lecturer of Marketing and Small Business, University of the West of Scotland

When brewery and pub chain BrewDog invited customers to become shareholders through its “Equity for Punks” scheme, it appeared to represent a new model of capitalism. It invited beer enthusiasts to invest in the company and become small shareholders. This allowed the Scottish firm to present itself as a community built around rebellion, identity and participation.

For a time, the BrewDog model looked remarkably successful – the company was once valued at £2 billion. But after its sale to American cannabis and alcohol firm Tilray for just £33 million, it is clear that there is more to the story.

The real story here is not about one craft brewer. It is about a broader shift in modern capitalism, where companies increasingly use narratives to mobilise communities and raise capital. But at the same time, the institutional rules of finance still determine who gets what and when.

BrewDog raised substantial capital (said to be £75 million) from thousands of small investors who were already loyal to the brand. Instead of relying exclusively on banks, venture capital or institutional investors, the company mobilised its own community to fund growth. Customers became shareholders, while the firm strengthened its reputation as a disrupter within the industry.

Then came the bar closures, job losses and BrewDog’s sale to Tilray. These developments suggest that small investors from the Equity for Punks programme will see little financial return.

In general, supporters tend to see themselves as partners in an entrepreneurial journey. Yet legally they remain minority investors. And minority investors occupy a very specific position within the institutional architecture of capitalism.

The BrewDog story is a reminder that markets run on stories as well as money. The effect of this has been to blur the boundary between customer and investor.

We believe that people rarely invest only because of spreadsheets. Our research on entrepreneurship shows that economic behaviour is shaped by trust, narratives and shared identity as much as by financial indicators. And the American sociologist Mark Granovetter argued that markets are “embedded” in social networks, meaning that people invest in people – and in their stories.

This resonates with our broader research on how economic exchanges, including investments and purchases, are also often sustained through these factors. BrewDog’s Equity for Punks model captured this dynamic perfectly.

But there’s also a question around what it really means to be part of a community when the balance sheet starts to matter.

Cold beer, cold reality

Community narratives may mobilise people to invest their money, but a body of strict rules and regulations shapes the outcome. Three points here are particularly important.

First, while the equity-public model undoubtedly has appeal, it’s also true that companies operate within legal frameworks that determine ownership rights and the order in which creditors are repaid if the company is liquidated or sold.

Second, lenders and structured investors typically enjoy protections that small retail investors, like BrewDog’s punks, do not.

Third, corporate finance works through a hierarchy, so it should be recognised that this places creditors ahead of shareholders when companies face financial stress. Shareholders are last in line to recoup their money from a company – after lenders, tax authorities, employees and suppliers.

When customers invest in companies they admire, they often interpret their role differently from conventional shareholders. Under BrewDog’s Equity for Punks programme, thousands of customers bought small stakes in the company not just for potential financial returns.

This point resonates with our research on how businesses and communities interact. It shows that economic behaviour is often shaped by the rules, expectations and relationships that surround markets. In practice, this means that people do not make decisions based only on prices or profits.

None of this suggests bad faith on the part of companies like BrewDog. It simply reflects the fact that markets operate through institutions.

Episodes like the BrewDog one serve as a reminder of a basic feature of modern capitalism. That is, when financial pressure appears, institutional rules take over.

All that being said, community-driven investment models will probably become more common. Digital platforms make it easier than ever for firms to mobilise supporters around shared narratives and identities. But at the same time, the institutional rules that govern corporate finance have not evolved at the same pace as these new forms of participatory capitalism.

If modern capitalism increasingly invites people to invest not only their money but also their faith, the gap between narrative and institutional reality will become harder to ignore. Communities may power the stories that fuel entrepreneurship. But when the balance sheet tightens, it is still institutional rules that decide who gets paid.

BrewDog did not respond to a request to respond to the claims made in this article.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. How BrewDog showed the limits of community capitalism – https://theconversation.com/how-brewdog-showed-the-limits-of-community-capitalism-278122